China was fighting to maintain public confidence in its food safety after a
massive stockpile of melamine-tainted milk powder was seized during raids on
warehouses in the nation’s biggest city.

The seizures in Chongqing come three years after the 2008 Sanlu milk scandal, in which three babies died and 300,000 others were sickened by melamine-tainted milk in an episode that fatally undermined already fragile public trust in the government’s ability to keep food safe.

The discovery of the tainted milk powder, which was due to be made into pastry and ice-cream, has drawn attention to the inability of China’s government to police China’s vast and fragmented food chain.

In a bid to restore confidence, the city authorities in Chongqing, a municipal area with 35m inhabitants, have announced a 100-day crackdown on food and drug fraud in a mirror-image of a crackdown last year on mafia crime.

On Monday some 7,900 police in Chongqing were reportedly deployed to conduct city-wide raids on 600 premises suspected of producing illegal or fake food and pharmaceuticals.

Some 917 cases were already under investigation in Chongqing, according to local reports including the use of the textile dye Rhodamine B in broad bean paste; the discovery of formalin, an industrial preserving and clotting agent in the city’s famed hotpot restaurants and industrial carbon dioxide to carbonate beer.

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The dramatic show of force in Chongqing, which will involve 10,000 law enforcement officials and continue until March 31, is also an indication of how seriously China’s government takes the threat of food scandals which have the potential to cause widespread hysteria and social unrest.

Last month Chinese housewives embarked on a crazed salt-buying spree after internet reports suggested – erroneously – that the iodine in salt could protect against radiation fallout caused by the explosions at the Fukushima nuclear plants in Japan.

For several days the Chinese government pleaded and ordered the public to stop buying the salt, but were ignored, in a further sign of the dangerous lack of trust between that exists between the Chinese public and their government.

Many Chinese are still angry and sceptical after learning how the 2008 Sanlu scandal had been hushed up for several months in order to protect against any national embarrassment during that year’s Olympic Games.

Despite the threat of capital punishment for those found breaking food regulations, China has continued to be shocked by almost monthly food scandals, a fact which is widely attributed to the endemic corruption among Chinese officials who take bribes to turn a blind eye.

Earlier this month 286 people were sickened in the central province of Hunan after eating pork contaminated with the steroid clenbuterol, which used to make the meat leaner, while in the Southern province of Guangdong 17 noodle makers were shut down after they were discovered using ink, industrial dye and paraffin wax in their products.

China has some of the toughest food regulations in the world, but has struggled to enforce them adequately.

Last weekend its Ministry of Health published a blacklist of 151 banned additives and launched a year-long campaign to stamp out the use of clenbuterol , or ‘lean meat powder’ as farmers call it, in pork production.

The campaign was backed at the highest levels with Vice-Premier Li Keqiang, the head of a cabinet-level committee on food safety and the man expected to take over from Wen Jiabao as China’s number two leader next year.

Mr Li promised “a firm attitude, iron hand and more effort” in dealing with food safety problems, including the use of capital punishment.